Local Journalism, Access To Capital Among Issues Raised By Media Execs on Both Sides of Media Ownership Debate

The issue of media ownership is important because it goes to the heart of American democracy in the 21st century, said Wade Henderson, Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights president. Who owns and controls what information is accessible via cellphones and other devices is “central to the conversation of the very health of our democracy,” he said. Henderson said the FCC is failing “to ensure that information in America remains an essential democratic and open opportunity for all.” Conglomerates “created huge empires by gobbling up local independent outlets,” which resulted in stamping out local input, he said. Women and minority ownership is behind, he added. “These disparities aren’t an accident. Fostering diversity in media ownership is “squarely within the powers and responsibility of the FCC,” but it has consistently failed to address the matter in a significant way, Henderson said. Instead of promoting diversity in media ownership, the FCC “is preparing to vote for an order that will increase media consolidation,” he said: The agency “seems to be siding with homogeneity."

The FCC proceeding appears to be addressing issues that aren’t against innovation, but that are for it and that support minority interests, said Jane Mago, NAB general counsel. The increase in the number of women and minorities moving up in officer positions leads to more diversity of ownership in the industry, she said. NAB’s broadcast leadership training gives participants the opportunity to learn the basics of how to get into the broadcasting business, she added.

Innovation is key, said Bernie Lunzer, The Newspaper Guild president. He said he has concerns about establishing a policy that actually makes things worse. “We need real innovation” around print products and tying them back to the community, he said. “Journalism itself is in trouble,” he added. “You might think there are plenty of journalists on ’that Web thing,’ but there isn’t."

"We're in a crisis of local accountability journalism,” said Steven Waldman, former FCC staffer and chief writer of the commission’s report “Information Needs of Communities.” The populations that are most hit by cutbacks in newsrooms are lower-income populations, he said. Media consolidation exacerbated the problem, but the cause of it is the Internet, he said. There are other options for accessing news, Waldman said. Media policy at the FCC and Congress needs to determine whether a merger increases local news or not, he said. Policymakers could implement rules or laws around mergers to help subsidize local media, like mandating a transaction fee, he added.

"A lot of the worst things that happened in the media industry are self-inflicted wounds, and the FCC has looked the other way for decades,” said Craig Aaron, Free Press president. The number of minority owners is dropping, he said. “The state of the news business isn’t good and media consolidation has a lot to do with it.” Aaron also said he’s concerned that many of the stations targeted for acquisition during a voluntary spectrum auction will be minority-owned.

The disparity in minority ownership is “abysmal,” Mago said. But “you can’t [just] say these numbers are bad,” she said. “You have to say what is the real problem here.” Access to capital, incubator programs and reinstatement of the tax certificate program are important factors, she said. The focus needs to be on creative financial approaches and not on structural issues, she added.